


Pillar I Am (Of Pride)

by reysrose



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: 404 Kylo Ren not found, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Bendemption, Best Friends Ben and Rose, Diplomacy, Drugs, Eventual Smut, Fever, Fix-It, Happily Ever After, Injury Recovery, Like in a medical sense, Major Character Injury, Medical Trauma, Multi, Nation Building, One Big Happy Family, Poe Dameron is kind of a dick, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Ben Solo, Protective Poe Dameron, Redeemed Ben Solo, Redemption takes hard work, Rey & Rose Tico Are Best Friends, Rey Needs A Hug, Team Bonding, Unresolved Tension, but Rey is under the influence of narcotics for a while, but he means well
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:49:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23388388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reysrose/pseuds/reysrose
Summary: Rey doesn't die on Exegol, not really.Everything changes.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Finn, Poe Dameron/Finn/Rose Tico, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	Pillar I Am (Of Pride)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [americanhoney913](https://archiveofourown.org/users/americanhoney913/gifts).



> I started this as a quick prompt for my dear friend and it spiraled out of control.

He can feel Rey’s collapse in his own chest, her pain shooting through his ribs and his lungs. He gasps, desperately clawing up the face of the cliff he’d been thrown down. He pleads with her in his mind, even though the bond is frayed and weak and she can’t hear him. His hand reaches the top of the cliff and he drags himself over, barely making it to his feet.

She’s limp on the stone, and he can see a small pool of blood soaking it as he hits his knees. For a moment he thinks she’s dead, feeling almost nothing in the back of his head where her warmth normally lives. He presses his bloody, raw fingers to her throat, groaning when he feels a pulse. It’s barely there, thready and too fast as her heart works overtime to keep the rest of her alive. 

“You can’t die,” Ben murmurs to her, pressing his palms over her neck and spine to check for potentially catastrophic damage, “Please don’t die, sweetheart.” 

Rey coughs, and he rolls her to her side as blood sprays from her mouth. He rubs her back, cupping her forehead as she gasps and struggles for air.

“You’re alright,” he says, even though she isn’t, even though she’s dying under his hands. Rey moans, and he feels her wavering Force signature grow the tiniest bit stronger as her eyelids flutter and he very delicately lifts her to rest against his chest. She whines low in her throat again, mouth opening and closing. A cough bursts from her lungs, blood splattering down her chin and into his tattered sweater. 

“Oh, sweetheart,” he mumbles, kissing the top of her head, “I know it hurts, but I’ve got you.”

He needs to get her up, needs to get them safe and out of this forcedamned planet. He goes to stand, trying to avoid pressure on his damaged leg, and Rey cries out like he’s hit her. He grits his teeth, cupping her head, and gets himself all the way up. She’s moaning, shaking in his arms, eyes rolling as her lids flutter open and closed. She’s dying. He clings to her, trying to shove some of his force energy into her. He’s been pushing it at her, keeping her heart pumping and her lungs working, but he’s too drained to heal her.

“Fuck!” He snarls, stepping onto the elevator as Rey gasps around a mouthful of blood. 

“Here, spit,” He tells her, coaxing her to let her mouthful of blood go. A wave of bile comes up after, unbidden, barely a heave from her battered stomach. He wipes her chin and limps from the stone, staggering toward the X Wing she’d come in. He sends out a distress signal, then sinks to the stone, cradling her in his lap, willing her to breathe. They’re both soaked in blood and stale vomit, and he strokes her hair back, letting his tears leak down onto her pale, battered face. 

“Ben,” she groans, her face turning into his shoulder. 

“I’m right here,” he says, pushing his hand through her hair. It’s fallen from her buns and he aimlessly twirls braids into it to keep himself from falling apart, listening for the sound of engines or a commlink, or anything. She tilts her head to look at him, one shaking hand tugging at his own head and bringing his mouth down to hers. Her lips are frozen and cracked against his, her life draining out of her, the taste of blood on her teeth. It’s the sweetest thing Ben can even imagine. Her hand falls away from his hair and she drops back into her stupor, snuggled into his lap. 

His chest warms up slightly before he hears it; his father’s ship. He can sense Force signatures he’s known all his life, the orange yellow glow of an uncle and the silvery threads of another. He smoothes a hand over Rey’s cheek.

“Open your eyes, sweetheart,” He whispers, as the Falcon touches down in front of him, “help is here.”

Chewbacca howls angrily at him, accusing. Ben tightens his grip on Rey as she coughs up more blood, gasping. Her breathing has been declining as they’ve waited, and when he gets a glimpse of her cloudy, pained eyes he grimaces. 

“I didn’t do this!” He shouts, as his uncle raises a blaster. The stormtrooper bursts out of the ship and shouts Rey’s name, but his poor girl makes no indication she’s heard it. His uncle warbles and Ben tunes everything out beside his uncle’s warm embrace around his shoulders.

*I will take the cub,* Chewie tells him. Ben recoils, clutching at Rey. She’s shivering, and she’s not moving air on one side of her chest. Her lungs. Something is wrong with her lungs. He looks up at Chewie, tears streaking through the dirt and blood on his face. Rey moans. 

“I can’t-” he starts. Chewie shakes his head. Ben feels arms under his as Chewie lifts Rey from his grasp and cradles her into his chest. 

“Lando,” he rasps, as a silvery thread of the Force wraps around him. 

“I got you, little Starfighter,” Lando says in his ear, “I got you.”

“Rey,” He moans, as Lando forces him up the ramp of the Falcon. His legs don’t want to carry him, his head spinning. Rey’s Force signature is a tiny flicker in the back of his head.

“I have to go to her,” he forces out, “She’s dying.” 

There’s a miniscule woman hunched over Rey where she lays limp and tiny in Chewie’s lap as Lando gets him onto a cot in the Falcon. Ben groans, gritting his teeth at the pain.

“Rey,” He gasps out, “What are you doing to her?”

“Take it easy,” the woman says, “I’m getting a breathing tube in. You need to relax, okay?” 

“I have to be with her,” he moans, dragging himself to his feet and stumbling over to Chewie, falling to his knees and clutching Rey’s hand. There’s a machine breathing for her now, her skin translucent. Her heart isn’t working as hard, and he can feel her Force signature strengthening in his head. His hand slips from hers and he feels himself fall backward onto the durasteel, eyes unfocused. The little medic that had placed Rey’s breathing tube is hovering, saying something he can’t hear. 

Ben lets his eyes close. 

~

Rey wakes up and she’s drowning. Her limbs and hair float around her in a cloud of viscous fluid, a tube down her throat that she’s too weak to fight against. Everything hurts, her skull, her fingernails, everything. She needs to get out. She has to get out! Why isn’t anyone letting her out!

She reaches for the bond, instinctually, and realizes that Ben is closer to her than he’s ever been. With her limited strength (she feels like a newborn tooka kitten) she reaches out, grabs his end of their connection, and pulls. And pulls. And pulls and-

“Oh Force, you weren’t supposed to wake up yet, fuck’s sake, Rey-”

That’s Rose. A wet cloth drags across her eyes and Rey opens them, moaning when her head spins and her gut churns. There’s a couple of IVs in her arms, and she moans around her tube again. 

“When I say cough, cough, okay?”

Rey does as she’s told and immediately feels deprived of oxygen, gasping on the air around her. The world blurs, until a mask falls over her face. Rey sucks in lungfuls of pure air, moaning, twitching her weak limbs. 

“That’s it. Good girl.” 

“Ben,” Rey whispers, her throat raw, her lungs working overtime. A machine is shrilling near her head. Dr. Kalonia appears in her line of vision.

“Okay, we’re gonna have to re-intubate if she doesn’t stabilize in the next few minutes-”

“Ben-”

“He’s coming, Rey, he commed us to tell us you were awake-”

“Ben-” she calls, voice panicked, sharp and shrill in her own ears and then he’s there, one hand pressing over her breast bone. Her breathing comes easier, the pain searing across her nerves more manageable. She wants him to scoop her into his arms and cradle her, wants to feel warmed by his arms. Her body aches, foolishly straining to touch him. He gathers her hand in the one not warming her chest and kisses the knuckles, one after the other. 

“You- you’re not cuffed.”

“Turns out, if you funnel the Resistance everything you know about the FO, they don’t put you in prison,” Ben murmurs. 

“Hold me,” she whimpers tiredly, “please.” 

She wakes screaming more than not, destroying medical instruments with the Force and tearing tubes from her broken body. Ben is always there, either immediately or within minutes, his calm being pressed into her hair and skin with his hands and words. 

“We should take her to a private room,” Ben argues, cradling her in his lap as she tries to stop crying after another nightmare. She’d shattered her heart monitor and thrown a medidroid across the room, narrowly avoiding knocking the nurse who’d rushed to her side out cold. Kalonia sighs, reattaching Rey’s fluid drip.

“I don’t need that,” she snarls, and yanks the entire IV out of her arm with the Force. Another patient gives her a dirty look at the sound she makes, high and entirely undignified, as the cannula slips out at an angle. Ben pinches the bridge of his nose angrily.

“You do,” he snaps at her, “because it’s the only thing keeping you hydrated.” 

“So I’ll drink more water,” she grouses, no longer crying but instead dragging herself away from his lap and onto the surface of the cot instead. 

“Rey, I swear to the Force-” 

“Fuck you, get out-”

“Would both of you,” Dr. Kalonia yells, “Please stop.” 

“24 hours out of medbay, and then a checkup. If you’re still stable and improving, you can stay out,” this directed at Rey, “and you,” directed at Ben, “need to be with her at all times. You’re the only person on this base who can wrangle her.” 

“I don’t need a babysitter,” Rey growls, still shying away from Ben when he reaches out to touch her.

“There are several reasons you need a babysitter,” Kalonia barks, “Allow me to list them. Pneumothorax. Punctured lungs. Several broken ribs. That pesky concussion you’re still healing from. Internal bleeding you’re still healing from.”

“I get it,” Rey cries, frustrating and aching and exhausted, “I get it.” 

Bacta had done wonders for Ben’s badly damaged leg, and he carries her from medbay. It’s embarrassing, being the woman who defeated Palpatine but weak enough that she’s unable to even walk. She hides her face in his neck, trying to ignore the whispers. Ben’s hand cups her neck, wide enough to settle on the base of her skull and her shoulder at once. His swaying steps make her feel sick after days of being in bed, and she clenches her teeth and clings to his shirt. 

“I know,” he murmurs into her hair as they step outside. The fresh air helps her stomach, and she dares to pull her face from it’s safe spot in the crook of Ben’s neck. Her vision swims in the sudden sunlight, and she blinks away stars in her vision. 

“Put me down for a minute?” she asks into his jaw. He nods, setting her pale feet on the ground, his big hands spanning her narrow waist. Her legs feel like rubber, weak and trembling like the rest of her. She takes a single step with him cradling her, then her knees buckle.

“Oh!” 

Ben lifts her again, letting her wrap her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck.

“You’ll get your strength back, sweetheart.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my legs,” she mumbles, resting her head on his shoulder, “so I don’t understand why they won’t cooperate with me.”

She’s breathing hard, nearly panting, and her hands are still fisted in the fabric of his shirt. Ben drops a kiss to her temple.

“You nearly died. Your body is weak from being in bacta, and then in bed. You need time.” 

Rose snuggles under the blankets with her later, once she’s had a nap. She’s exhausted and she curls into her, pressing their foreheads together.

“Your man is being really helpful,” Rose tells her as Rey traces drunken swirls on Rose’s palm. Rey grins, then groans as a coughing fit has her jackknifing into a sitting position, Rose’s arms winding around her waist. The coughing is painful and so violent she throws up off the side of her cot in the Falcon, left panting and staring at all the water she’d worked to drink. 

“Hey,” Rose tells her, smoothing her hair back, “It’s okay.” 

“Ugh,” Rey moans, spitting the taste of stale watery bile out of her mouth. Rose’s palm cups her forehead, arm wrapping around her waist and laying her back down. 

“I’ve got it. Do you want me to go get Ben?” 

“You can’t tell him,” Rey whispers, pressing her cheek into the pillow, “He’ll make me go back to that forcedamned medbay.” 

“Honey, I think you should probably be in the medbay. You just threw up.” 

“Happens.” 

Rose strokes Rey’s hair back, and Rey catches her grimace.

“What?”

“You’re a little feverish, love,” Rose murmurs, “Please, let me comm Ben.”

Rey nods, tiredly. She feels awful, the vomiting and the coughing and the shivering that’s beginning. She wants Ben. 

“Wait,” she whimpers, “wait. Don’t leave me.”

“I am right here with you.” 

Rose comms Ben, climbing from the bunk and beginning to wipe up the puke on the durasteel. Rey curls deeper into the blankets, joints beginning to ache with fever. Ben is there in minutes, his broad palm cupping her cheek. 

“Rose said you threw up?”

“Coughing,” Rey slurs, pressing into his hand. She’s cold, he’s warm, his hands are wide and calloused and she lets Ben lift her into his arms.

“Rosie,” she moans. 

“She’s dehydrated,” Ben says, not to her. Rose’s small hand slips into hers. It’s enough reassurance for her to relax into Ben’s grip. 

“Are we-” She breaks into a coughing fit, “going to medbay?” 

“Mhm,” Ben murmurs, “you’ll be alright.” 

“Congratulations,” Kalonia scoffs, when she sees Ben carrying Rey into medbay again, “you made it barely three hours. Your oxygen is low.” 

Rey presses her cheek into Ben’s shoulder to hide her tears after she’s hooked up to oxygen. Kalonia starts a new IV, and Rey admits quietly that she starts feeling better within 10 minutes of the fluids starting. Ben strokes her hair back, leaning back in his chair. Rey rolls her head to look at him, yawning.

“Where’s Rose?”

“I sent her for Finn and Poe. I figured you’d need some cheering up, sweetheart.”

She smiles. It’s weak and lopsided, and she can feel herself swimming toward sleep. 

When she wakes up, Finn is holding her hand. He smiles at her, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. 

“Stop looking at me like I’m dead,” she rasps. Finn squeezes her hand. 

“You’ve got a fever again, peanut,” he murmurs, “and your lungs are looking a little cloudy.”

“I overdid it,” she mumbles, “Where’s Ben?”

“Coordinating an airstrike on a First Order outpost.”

“I want him,” she slurs, “I feel sick.”

“He’ll be done soon,” Finn whispers, stroking a clump of sweaty hair out of her face. 

“Finn, is Poe mad at me?”

“No, peanut. Why would you think that?”

Rey yawns, rolling her head to the side.

“He hasn’t come to see me. Is he mad about Ben?”

“It’s just a little strange for him, love,” Finn murmurs. She whines, and he drapes a cool cloth over her forehead. It helps with the ache in her head, one she didn’t notice until it was gone. Finn presses his hand to her cheek. He’s warm, dark eyes concerned. 

“Not dying,” she reminds him. He nods. 

“I know,” he says, adjusting the blankets covering her, “let me worry about you anyway.”

~  
Ben is sitting with Rose by Rey’s bedside when the order to move to Coruscant comes through. They’ve been waiting on it for a while, so it isn’t a surprise, but he still doesn’t think it’s a good idea. 

“I’m worried about moving her,” he tells Rose. Rose nods, one of her little hands reaching for his. She’s got tiny hands. All of her is so small, and he feels like she should be scared of him but she’s not. She was the first one of Rey’s friends to start warming up, after she punched him in the face. Ben lets her trace the lines on his palm, breathing calmly. She’d found him in a panic attack two days after Rey had nearly died, and she’d talked him down, and then, in a move he still thought shocking, hugged him as hard as she could. 

“I know, but she’s doing alright,” Rose says, reaching out to stroke a sweaty curl from Rey’s face. Rey moans, turning into Rose’s touch in her sleep. Ben checks the monitor again. Her oxygen is good but not great, her heart rate high. The scanner on her forehead beeps quietly, her temperature reading 103. Rey moans again, her eyelids fluttering. 

“Hey, baby,” he whispers, as her eyes open. The hazel of her irises is clouded with fever and narcotics, her lips cracked and dry. They part around a sigh and then a gasp of pain, and Rey meets his eyes. 

“M’floating,” she slurs. She won’t remember this, Ben knows. She hasn’t been remembering most of the time she spends awake, drugged beyond reason and burning up. He reaches for the wet cloth in the bowl by the bed and presses it to her burning, sticky cheek. Rey makes a small sound in the back of her throat. 

“Who else,” she whimpers, trying to look around the room. Her eyes cross, and Rose reaches out to stroke a thumb over her arm.

“Just me, honey,” Rose says softly. Rey yawns again. Ben swabs her lips with a rag and Rey licks her lips.

“Thirsty?”

Rey nods. Her eyes are completely closed but she opens her mouth for the straw Rose puts in it and she sucks down half a cup of water.

“Better?” he asks, kissing her temple. Rey nods once, sluggish, and then goes completely lax on the cot. Ben sighs, adjusting the blankets over her and making sure her IV is still in the right place. 

As they load her onto the medical transport, her overly warm hand in his as she sleeps, Ben catches the eye of Poe Dameron and feels his hackles rise. He redirects his attention, making sure Rey is strapped in comfortably, swaddled in blankets. She makes a tired sound in the back of her throat but doesn’t wake up. He kisses the top of her head and goes to find Finn, letting him know they’re good to go back there. Finn claps him on the shoulder. Finn is warming up to him, slowly, mostly because he’s so important to Rey, and Ben appreciates his quiet and stolid support.

“Hey, man,” Poe says, as Ben heads back to where Rey’s bed is. Ben stiffens but looks at Poe as levelly as he can.

“Yeah?” 

It’s the first time Poe has spoken to him outside of meetings and debriefings since he brought Rey home, which was almost three weeks ago. Ben bites his lip, looking around for Rose even though he knows she’s on a different transport ship. He needs a buffer, and Rose makes an excellent buffer. 

“I think you should take a step back. You’re with her constantly.”

“Because she needs me,” Ben says, trying to sound mild. He sounds feral. 

“She has other people that care about her,” Poe continues, “and we can look after her just as well. I just don’t know how healthy-”

“You can look after her?” Ben snaps, “You, who hasn’t been to see her, at all? Finn told me she thinks you’re angry with her. She was upset about it.” 

“I would be there, but you’re always there, and it just feels wrong.”

“Wrong how,” Ben snarls.

“Wrong like you’re a mass murderer!” Poe shouts. On her cot, Rey whimpers. Ben shoves past Poe and goes to her, scooping up her limp hand. Poe starts to hover behind him, reaching out to her. Ben slaps his hand away, glaring at him. 

“Hey,” Ben murmurs, as Rey’s eyes open and her face scrunches.

“Why are we flying?” she mumbles.

“We gotta move to Coruscant, love,” Ben coos, stroking her hair. Rey nods tiredly, drifting again.

“Had a bad dream,” she slurs, “you died.”

“I’m right here, sweetheart,” Ben tells her, squeezing her hand, “I’m just fine, yeah? Go back to sleep, Rey. You need the rest.”

Once Rey is asleep again, head lolled to the side and sweat soaking her pillow, Ben rounds on Poe. 

“Look,” he snarls, “I am around, and I will be around until Rey tells me she doesn’t want me anymore. My loyalties are to her, not to you, and I don’t care what you think about our relationship.”

Poe opens his mouth to retort but Ben stands up, getting chest to chest with him. Poe swallows visibly, dwarfed by Ben’s height. 

“If you care about her,” Ben hisses, “You’ll start showing it.” 

Poe storms off, and Ben sits down next to Rey, sighing.

“You gotta get better soon, sweetheart, or else I think we’re all gonna go crazy waiting for you.”

~

Time passes in a fevered haze. She thinks she cries, at one point, because Ben isn’t there. Probably more than once, because whenever she wakes up and Ben isn’t there she bursts into hysterical tears until someone can calm her down. Rose swims in and out of her dreams and memories, and Rey is pretty sure that she’s there the most out of all her friends. More than even Ben. Poe still doesn’t visit. There’s still a war to be fought, even though Palpatine is dead. Thinking his name makes her queasy. 

“I should be helping,” she slurs. Kaydel is with her, eating what Rey thinks is lunch. She hasn’t been eating by mouth, she has no idea what time it is.

“You need to rest,” Kaydel reminds her. Rey coughs, opening her mouth for water. Kaydel feeds her a little, wiping her chin when she struggles to swallow and some dribbles from her mouth.

“I’ve been resting,” she groans, trying to push herself to sitting. Kaydel rests a hand on her ribs and she can’t move, her body is too weak and she feels dizzy. 

“You died, honey,” Kaydel says, reaching to page a nurse. Rey doesn’t need a nurse. At some point they’d moved to Coruscant, and Rey is in an official medical facility. She’s fine and she moans, turning her head to tell Kaydel that, but she just coughs. The nurse pokes at her and Rey grunts unhappily, tossing her head. 

The fever breaks, finally, one night while Ben is holding her. She’s shivering in his arms, curled as tightly as her brittle body will let her as they watch a holo-drama. Rose is in a chair next to them, but she’s dozing. 

“She had a long day,” Ben murmurs, pressing a kiss to her head, “Got to yell at some stuffed shirts though, which was glorious.”

Ben and Rose have a strange, tight friendship. Rey isn’t entirely sure how that happened, just that it did. Both of them are fiercely protective of her, and she thinks that’s how they started liking each other. She’s cold.

“You’re sweating,” Ben murmurs, pressing his lips to her forehead instead of her hair, “oh. Oh!”

“What,” she croaks.

“The fever broke,” Ben says. His voice sounds thick, and when she looks up at him, tears are glimmering in his dark eyes. She cups his cheek and kisses him, brushing her tongue over the salty tears on his lower lip. 

“Finally,” she breathes.


End file.
